It is common to have digital files stored and used within a computer system that are inter-dependent such that the computer system requires all of the inter-dependent files when implementing a function or executing an operation. Often these various files have different data types or formats that make it cumbersome or impossible to merge into a single file. A prime example of inter-dependent files can be found in the composition of web page files used for viewing content on the Internet, and particularly the World Wide Web, which is the Internet's multimedia information retrieval system.
In the Web environment, client machines effect transactions to Web servers using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is a known application protocol providing users access to files (e.g., text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.) using a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML along with Extended Markup Language (“XML”) and others are members of a family of computer languages referred to as “markup languages”. Markup languages are computer languages that define the format of a text document in a device-independent way. A primary purpose of a markup language, such as HTML, is to instruct a Web browser how to display the contents of the document, including text, images and other support media.
An “HTML document” is a special type of document that includes HTML codes to permit the document to be viewed using a Web browser program. An HTML document that is accessible on a World Wide Web site is commonly referred to as a “Web document” or “Web page.” Web pages commonly include embedded components, such as GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) and BMP (Bit-Mapped Graphics) files, which are represented within the HTML coding as directory paths within the server memory system or as a network path using Uniform Resource Locators (URL) to provide a reference to the required file.
As a result, when an HTML file is to be transferred between storage devices, computers or networks, the co-requisite files referenced within the HTML coding, for example, a graphics image, often must be transported along with the HTML file in order for the Web page to be properly rendered when accessed at its destination. Unfortunately, existing computer systems require the system user to remember or have knowledge of the relationship between the particular HTML file being transferred and its set of co-requisite files so that all files necessary to render the Web page are transferred, moved, copied or emailed to the destination. The problem is further complicated when the co-requisite files may not reside in the same directory as the HTML file. An alternative is to insert URL links into the HTML code so that the Web page is dynamically generated at the destination, which uses the path information identifying the location of the linked page or object to download the image file into the Web page. However, a client may not have an Internet connection to access the URL, the object content may have been moved to a different host server location, or the hosting server may no longer support the object content altogether. Consequently, what is needed is a method and system that automatically transports all co-requisite files when a related file is transported or copied to a different location within a computer or network system.